Ian Douglas - Luna Marine

The door to Jack’s room, just to the left of the screen, opened, and his mother walked in. She glanced at the screen, then at Jack, who was pulling himself and his chair awkwardly up close against his desk. “Are you okay, dear? I thought I heard you…talking to someone.”

“Um, sure, Mom. I was just talking to Sam, here. You know, Sam Clemens? My agent?”

“Howdy, Ms. Ramsey,” Sam said in a pleasant, homespun Missouri drawl.

“Oh, of course, dear,” she said, ignoring the AI agent. “I just wanted to tell you that your Aunt Liana just arrived. I think it would be nice if you came down and said hello.”

“Aw, now?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“Uh, I’ll be down in just a few, Mom. Sam here is helping me download some stuff.”

“That’s fine.”

She paused to glance at the recruiting posters decorating much of the wall space not taken up by the monitor. Above Jack’s bed, a grinning, life-size Marine in crisp Class As snapped a salute, held it, dropped it, then saluted again in an endlessly animated cycle. “The Marines Want YOU” was emblazoned across the bottom of the sheet, the letters cycling through the entire spectrum, as Valkyries streaked through the sky in the background. Nearby by was a large, full-color poster of the flag-raising at Cydonia, five US Marines in vacuum armor, hoisting a small American flag on a length of pipe against the pink sky and rusty stone backdrop of Mars. The photo was signed by David Alexander, the civilian archeologist who’d taken the photograph.

The man who also happened to be Jack’s uncle.

“Come on down when you’re ready. Just don’t take too long.”

She pulled the door shut behind her, and Jack loosed a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. That had been entirely too close; usually, he could hear her coming up the stairs, but that time he’d nearly been caught. He thought again about a pressure-sensitive switch with a PC-radio link he’d seen in World Electronics for fifty bucks. It might be worth it, to be able to flash an alarm whenever Mom started up the steps. If she ever caught on to “Sam’s” alter ego…

“It’s okay, Samantha,” he whispered. “She’s gone. But, uh, keep your voice down, okay?”

At the name Samantha, Samuel Longhorn Clemens pixel-flickered back into the guise of a blond, naked, twenty-year-old woman, standing this time in the Clemens library. Jack himself was seventeen, an age particularly susceptible to the charms of commercial AI net agents who looked and spoke and undressed like her. Software packages like Samantha—the thought of the word “software” made him vent a quiet, frustratedly longing groan—were supposedly restricted to people twenty-one and older, but it was easy enough to get around those rules, especially if you had a buddy with a valid Net ID. The net vendors, mostly, just wanted your recorded assurance that you were twenty-one so that they didn’t get into trouble if you got caught. Damn it, the United States still had such uptight and puritanical laws about sex. It wasn’t like you couldn’t go to any public beach or download any movie these days without seeing plenty of nudity, all ages, all sexes, all orientations.

“Maybe I should go ahead and get those downloads,” he told her.

Reaching up, she cupped her full breasts, rubbing her nipples between her fingers. “Whatever you say…Jack. But, oooh, I would just love it if you could download me.” Watching her, it was impossible to think of her as anything other than a flesh-and-blood woman. Net agents, however, artificially intelligent programs designed to search the Net for information and to serve as secretaries, librarians, search specialists, data valets, and even personal stand-ins, were the most visible aspects of the ongoing computer revolution, and they could look like anyone, or anything, their owners desired.

“Whatcha got for me?”

She leaned forward in the screen, drawing a deep, slow breath. “Lots….”

A window opened to the left of the screen, the image adjusting itself so that none of Sam’s lush anatomy was obscured. A succession of images—military aircraft, tanks, troops, and ships flashed across the screen window. “I have two hundred twenty-seven news downloads,” Sam told him, “dealing with the war. Eighty-five of those are cross-linked with stories about the US Marine Corps.”

“Just gimme a summary.”

“Of course, Jack. In summation of the most important stories, extensive fighting is continuing near Chapayevsk and Saratov, where Moslem troops continue their advance into southern Russia, and at Vladivostok, where PRC troops are threatening to break through the Russian-American lines. US forces entered the towns of Navajoa and Ciudad Camargo yesterday, completing operations in Sonora and Chihuahua. According to Secretary of Defense Archibald Severin, ‘The threat of Mexico forcing the creation of their so-called Aztlan Republic, carved out of the American Southwest, has been effectively and permanently neutralized.’”

As she spoke, she let one hand slide down between her legs, gently caressing. Jack’s attention was torn between her and the rapid-fire succession of download imagery. On the screen, greasy black smoke boiled into the sky behind a war-damaged Capitol dome. Other scenes showed fire-fighters and disaster crews picking their way through tumbledown rubble and smoking craters.

“Four American cities,” Sam continued, “Washington, Atlanta, Boston, and Miami, were hit by EU ship-or sub-launched cruise missiles last night. Damage and casualties are reportedly light. The president said today that—”

“Never mind that. Let’s hear the stories about the Corps.”

“Of course, Jack. In Cuba, the launch sites at Matanzas and Sagua la Grande are now firmly under US control. Elements of the 1st Marines are advancing on Habana, and reports of mass surrenders of starving Cuban soldiers have been reported by most major news networks.

“In the Russian Far East today, the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 5th Marines, fighting alongside battle-hardened elements of the 43rd and 115th Russian Armies, repulsed what was described as a major human-wave assault south of Laka Khanka near the city of Ussuriysk—”

“Skip it, Sam. Space news.”

“Whatever you say, Jack. There are fifteen new stories dealing with space, including one cross-indexed to the US Marines and to the war.”

“Shibui! Now you’re talking! Let me hear that one, Sam.”

The window showed a stock photo of the moon, shot from space. “Reports of a military expedition to the moon by a special assault force of US Marines trained in space-combat techniques have been circulating in Washington today, but all attempts to confirm or deny these reports have so far failed. It has been confirmed that a Zeus II heavy-lift booster took off from Vandenberg early this morning with an estimated ninety to one hundred Marines aboard. Official agencies have responded only with ‘no comment’ to speculations that the Marines are bound for the UN-held base in the lunar crater Fra Mauro. There are no images associated with this story.”

“Okay. Save it, and I’ll look at that one a bit later. Anything on aliens?”

“There are twelve stories dealing with extraterrestrials or aliens, including three new additions to the Cave of Wonders database.”

“Sugoi shibui! Lemme see those now.”

“Of course, Jack. One of those stories mentions your Uncle David.”

“Hey, yatta! Play that one first.”

“Whatever you say, Jack.”

Jack didn’t mind admitting that he was space-crazy. A lot of his friends were, especially since the intriguing discovery of ancient humans on Mars had been publicized two years ago. The fact that his archeologist uncle, Dr. David Alexander, had been the sonic-imager technician on that expedition—and the man who’d smuggled out news of the discovery at the very beginning of the war—just made it that much better. And some of what they’d been coming up with, lately, from the incredible mass of data gathered within the Cave of Wonders…